[Patent] Is a 4G LTE MacBook in Our Future?

A recent patent discovered by PatentlyApple illustrates Apple’s innovative idea to include a 4G antenna in future MacBooks. Is Apple looking too far into the future or is this something that could actually be useful…

We’ve seen iterations of netbooks with built-in 3G cellular antennas, so this concept is nothing new universally. But for Apple this could mark the future release of a MacBook Air with built in LTE or even just your standard MacBook Pro. There’s one huge problem with this though, LTE data burns up quickly.

Mobile devices such as the new iPad which includes LTE is super data intensive. I couldn’t imagine how quickly a 5GB data plan would burn up on a MacBook. But either way I find the idea a bit intriguing. The antenna would sit behind the MacBook’s bezel (seen below) in order to prevent any type of interference from the aluminum build.

An antenna that may be formed from a conductive cavity that is located behind bezel region 18 noted in patent FIG. 1 above. An antenna with this type of configuration is shown in as antenna 22.

An advantage of forming the antenna behind the bezel is that this type of location allows incoming radio-frequency signals to reach the antenna without being impeded by conductive display or housing portions and allows radio-frequency signals to be freely transmitted from the antenna. If desired, other locations may be used for the antenna.

The MacBook may use antennas such as an antenna to handle communications over any communications bands of interest. For example, antennas and wireless communications circuitry in the MacBook may be used to handle cellular telephone communications in one or more frequency bands and data communications in one or more communications bands.

Cellular telephone communications could be handled using a multiband cellular telephone antenna and local area network data communications could be handled using a multiband wireless local area network antenna. As another example, the MacBook may have a single multiband antenna for handling communications in two or more data bands (e.g., at 2.4 GHz and at 5 GHz).

The patent has Enrique Ayala Vazquez, Hao Xu, Gregory Spring, Bing Chiang, Eduardo Camacho and Douglas Kough listed as the inventors. This patent was initially submitted in Q3 2008 and just recently published by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The fact that Apple was working on concepts like this in 2008 is amazing. Such innovation, years ahead of their technology…

I'm from Phoenix, AZ, married to a wonderful wife, have a beautiful daughter, and three dogs. I would definitely consider myself (in the coolest, most hipster way possible) a nerd. That being said, I love music, photo, video, and all things technology.
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